Category: Aggregated

A gathering of rich oil Arabs pledged $30 billion this week at a meeting in Kuwait to start rebuilding war-shattered Iraq.  Sounds nice but these kinds of conclaves are notorious for offering big but delivering little. The event was billed as helping Iraq repair war damage caused by ISIS.  In fact, most of the damage from that short-lived conflict was caused by US bombing and a few Russian air strikes.   ISIS, as this column has long been crying in the wilderness, was largely a paper tiger confected by the US, Britain and France to justify their military re-entry into Syria. … Continue reading →

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How can central banks “retrain” participants while maintaining their extreme policies of stimulus? Human habituate very easily to new circumstances, even extreme ones. What we accept as “normal” now may have been considered bizarre, extreme or unstable a few short years ago. Three economic examples come to mind: 1. Near-zero interest rates. If someone had announced to a room of economists and financial journalists in 2006 that interest rates would be near-zero for the foreseeable future, few would have considered it possible or healthy. Yet now the Federal Reserve and other central banks have kept interest rates/bond yields near-zero for almost nine … Continue reading →

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There have been 13 books written about Ted Kennedy and the Chappaquiddick incident of 1969. These support some eight theories as to what may have occurred that night, including the possibility that  Kennedy told the truth. There seems little point publishing yet another unless it truly solves the mystery. This one does. Bill Pinney, a life-long Chappaquiddick resident and former investigative reporter, introduces the first new witness who has stepped forward in almost 50 years. The accident is then analyzed scientifically by a renowned physicist and police consultant to determine whether the extraordinary premise implied by the witness’ sighting is true, or false. … Continue reading →

The post Chappaquiddick: Power, Privilege, and a Criminal Cover-Up appeared first on LewRockwell.

Frank Bruni, columnist for the New York Times, is outraged — outraged! — that people are comparing Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, to Ivanka Trump, the daughter of U.S. President Donald Trump. Both women are part of their respective governmental delegations to the Winter Olympics in South Korea. In his NYT column yesterday, Bruni expressed outrage that people would make such a comparison and, even worse, that they would actually compare North Korea and the United States. He believes that while North Korea is “rotten to the core,” America, under Trump, is only “in a rotten moment.” … Continue reading →

The post A New York Times Fairy Tale appeared first on LewRockwell.

I must confess, I discovered Ry Cooder late. Better late than never. I recall exactly where I was: a movie theater in Durham, North Carolina. It was 1978. I had just watched Jack Nicholson in a piece of fluff: Goin’ South. The movie closed with a panoramic scene of a desert. Then a song started. It had nothing to do with the closing scene. I could not believe my ears.  The credits started to roll. The song was still playing. I always stay for credits, but this time, nothing could have tempted me to leave. I waited for the end, … Continue reading →

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“Our democracy is only as good as people trust the results,” former President George W. Bush declared in a presumably well-paid speech last week in the United Arab Emirates, a notorious Arab dictatorship. Bush is being exalted as if he is the second coming of George Washington thanks to his implied slams against the Trump administration. But Bush’s actions during his eight-year reign did far more to ravage democracy at home and abroad than most people realize. Thanks to gushing media coverage, Bush is enjoying one of the greatest comebacks in modern American history. In the summer of 2008, only 22 percent of Americans approved of Bush … Continue reading →

The post He Doesn’t Deserve the Media’s Efforts at Rehabilitation appeared first on LewRockwell.

Secession – you can’t see it, you can’t smell it, you can’t touch it. But when it’s there, strange stuff happens: Huge numbers of police in combat gear appear out of nowhere, driving camouflaged armored vehicles, making you wonder where all the equipment is coming from, sirens howl, shrill bullhorns scream commands, whole streets, especially around school buildings, are sealed off, tear gas and rubber bullets are shot. Only there’s no opponent there at all. Eerie. Due to there being no opponents, the combat troops come down hard on peaceful people who are congregating at these school buildings for a … Continue reading →

The post Civic Anarchism appeared first on LewRockwell.

I’ve just been reading on Breitbart a tirade against Bill Kristol, which features a comparison between this supposedly falling neocon star and the author’s friend Tony, who landed in jail after stabbing his ex-wife’s lover.  Just like Tony, who unsuccessfully tried to attract his divorced wife’s attention, Bill, we are told, is going nuts in expressing his contempt for Donald Trump.  But like Tony, who in a fit of frustration destroyed his own life, Bill may be self-destructing as he disses a transformed conservative establishment. I’m not sure that this labored comparison works since I’ve no idea what the equivalent is in Bill’s case … Continue reading →

The post Bill Kristol Is Not Yet Out appeared first on LewRockwell.